The Ocean Maker – The Insider Story – Part 2

So the The Ocean Maker was effectively underway in a virtual way, with some team members in Austin. One up in Canada who was just starting to figure it all out. Lucas bouncing around between cities, and me in New York starting to deal with story issues. There was much more to it than that but I’ll let the other team members tell you their story. We did get the chance to hangout a little bit and meet up with each other over Google Hangout at one point, which if nothing else, just made it all a little bit more real.

One key thing we had to deal with before we set off to the Caribbean was hardware. One or two of us had laptops powerful enough to work on but many didn’t and Lucas opted to buy a laptop for each of us to use. They were very respectable machines, nothing special but very capable for what they cost and had a large screen. Henning and I both got one and began setting them up ready for use. It wouldn’t have been possible for Lucas to bring over all the hardware himself as that would have complicated things a lot, so we each took one in our hand luggage.

The next step was to get to Belize… or it would have been if my rent wasn’t so much in New York! Yes Lucas was able to pay for all our expenses going to the island, and living there, but since we weren’t going to get paid for our time the rent still had to be paid. So the two people coming from New York, Henning and I, both made an effort to find friends and sub-letters for our apartments. Unfortunately it was a lot of stress and I only managed to get half the costs of the place covered. So essentially I still had to pay quite a lot in rent and bills while I was away while earning nothing and potentially passing on paid jobs. Not ideal, but it shows just how dedicated we all were to the cause that we each had at least part of that to contend with in order to take part.

Finally I headed over to Henning’s place with a suitcase and we caught a taxi to the airport super early in the morning. Two flights later we were arriving in Belize. We were met by Lucas in the airport where we met George Renner coming from Canada, the youngest of our team. I didn’t know what he looked like at all, but as soon as I saw the him wandering out of the airport looking clueless I nudged Lucas convinced it was him. Lucas ran to give the usual manly Austin bear hug, and I totally failed to capture the moment on film. Documentary fail number one… actually we were so tired I didn’t catch much of the flight there either. Oh well.

We rode in a car and a boat to meet Christina Martell on the island of Caye Caulker. Christina and I know each other well, but the other two were meeting her in person for the first time (if you don’t count the video chat). She was in top form as she guided us via a trip on a golf cart (the transport of choice on this tiny island) to our new home and office for the duration of our stay, and so began the battle for who got what room!

As the oldest of the household I was graciously given the other downstairs bedroom (mostly because I stayed quiet and let the other two battle it out). Lucas and Christina had a similar room, while Henning and George figured out who was going to get the double room with the bathroom and who was going to get the not so private (wall-less) room in the loft. In the end they both did a stint in each room to make things a little fairer. There were sacrifices to be made for our little pleasure trip!

In time we all met with the other team members, Tad Catalano (who I had met before very briefly watching Lucas play Saxophone), Tray Duncan (who I’d heard a lot about but never met) and his wife Kathryn Nowlin. The three of them had another house to themselves around the corner from the main one the rest of us where in. It didn’t come with a pool but it did give them the luxury of a place to retreat to, escaping the main work space in our house. We all went out for a meal together, and enjoyed the local fish dishes.The main house had a large open area with a dinning table, two sofas and a number of extra chairs. We setup one small desk for Tad and the rest of us spread out across the sofas and dinning table. There was some speeches from Lucas and Christina to get everyone on the same level and sort out how the expenses were going to be handled but we quickly got to work setting up equipment. Having lived out of a suitcase before in Australia I knew I was going to be comfortable on the sofa with my Wacom to one side, freeing up the dining table for most of the rest of the team for a more traditional desk working space. Lucas actually set himself up in several spots over the course of our stay. Sometimes he was next to me so that we could bounce story, layout and animation ideas around. Other times he setup on the dinning table or even on a shelf standing up.

Beginning the following day we started our routine, and really got to work. These are all dedicated and passionate artists and we were all excited to get started. If anything Christina and Lucas were surprised at just how quick we got to work and started pulling some long days. They actually had to re-iterate several times that we were free to relax, acclimatize and take advantage of the island before starting… but it was too late, the creative bug had hit and we were off!

Part 3 coming soon. In the mean time check out the campaign which includes other videos about the project. Please feel free to share the story.

Michael Cawood is a multi-award winning British Animated Filmmaker with a broad skill set. Having worked in animation since 1994, he's created Films, Commercials, Games, Short Films and Animated Series.